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Dink's age, missed the point altogether; she ventured into the haunted night
as an angel, dressed in white, with white feathered wings. When the others
ragged her mercilessly, she said, "I tike being an angel, and so would you
if you were good enough to be one." This earned her even more jeers and
taunts, in response to which she merely smiled and curtsied-eticit-ing
additional mockery. One kid, masquerading as Death, had a genuinely creepy
costume. He was shorter than me, maybe ten years old. He wore a black robe
that dragged on the ground, a deep hood over his head. He'd painted his face
black, so it vanished in the hood. The long sleeves of his robe hid his hands.
But from time to time, he raised an arm and pointed at one of the other kids,
and from the sleeve came the bony fingers of a skeleton, no doubt a plastic,
novelty-shop gag that he was holding in his real hand. 2 Three things about
his performance were genius. First, he never spoke. No amount of taunting or
wheedling could pry a sound from him. Second, he stank iike death. Perhaps
with a chemistry-hobby set, this weirdo had concocted a putrescent stench and
sprinkled it on his robe. We recognized some of the kids. Some we didn't. Kid
Death, as I came to think of him, surely seemed to be a stranger, because
neither Dink nor I knew anyone who had this cool an imagination. From house to
house, we proceeded, and the trick-or-treaters grew increasingly terrified of
Kid Death. They were convinced the stinky one was real, not one of them, but
the Grim Reaper in miniature. I could have grabbed the little geek, wrestled
him to the ground, and yanked his hood back, but he was smaller than me. And
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as bad as I was, I never fought anyone unless he was my size or bigger.
Picking on someone smaller was a sign of weakness, and I was not my
father. Besides, I just wanted to move this show along and get to Mrs.
Carson's place. The third bit of genius in Kid Death's performance: He wasn't
carrying a shopping bag, and he showed no interest in candy. He held back, at
the periphery of the group, watching, pointing. If he didn't want candy, then
the logical conclusion, among the small fry in our group, was that HE WAS
REALLY DEATH, AND HE WANTED THEIR SOULS! Before long, Dink was staying
particularly close to me. In fact, all the kids were huddling around me. "He's
no kid," said Dink. "He's real." "Get real," I told him. "He's no
bogeyman." Just then, when Kid Death turned to us, moonlight flared in the
whites of his eyes, The moon was full, pocked and yellow, with rags of clouds
trailing from it, like the face of a mummy revealed between unraveling
bandages. His eyes, therefore, were yellow and unearthly. Pent-up terror
exploded through the group. When yellow-eyed Kid Death pointed at them with
his bony hand, the munchkins screamed and ran, having worked themselves into a
state of high anxiety. I lost Dink. Then I saw his small form with the fake
hump and the real limp, stumbling into the street. I saw, too, the onrushing
truck. Strong as I was, tough as I was, I couldn't reach him fast enough to
sweep him out of danger. I ran toward him. knowing it was hopeless. That's
when time stopped. Not for me. But it stopped for Kid Death and all the
trickor- treaters. They were frozen in midstep, in midbreath, like statues.
The clouds ceased unraveling across the face of the moon. The breeze died in
an instant, and not one leaf stirred on the trees. The world was suddenly
without sound: not a tick, not a click, not a whisper. I thought I'd gone
deaf. Time stopped for Dink, too. and for the speeding truck. At first I afone
was moving in a petrified world-but then I saw the little girl dressed as an
angel. She moved faster than I could, straight for Dink. She was flying, she
swept Dink off the street, carried him past the truck, and time started moving
again. The truck roared by in a blast of wind, and alt the munchkins were
screaming, and Dink was safe with the whitewinged girl on the other side of
the street. By the time I reached my brother, the girl was gone. I never saw
her vanish. I hugged Dink so hard. When the other trick-or-treaters gathered
around, I plucked off Kid Death's hood. He was a boy we knew, a geeky
sixth-grader. Dink didn't remember the angel girl. He thought I was the one
who pulled him out of the path of the truck. That's what he still believes,
all these years after that night. Indeed, no one remembered her but me. She
had been sent to save Dink, but even back then, hardcase Stony Loffman
realized she had been sent to save him, too. Which is why time didn't stop for
me, why I was allowed to see her fly. I never went to Mrs. Carson's house that
night. I never stole again. I threw away the knife. Dink grew up to be a
doctor of biology and a medical researcher whose discoveries have saved
uncountable lives. 3 Me? I've become a popular writer of suspense novels,
scary stuff. Married, with two kids of my own. I was successful enough, early
enough, to give my mom ten years of easy living before she died. Because of
what I write, people often ask me what is the scariest thing that's
ever happened to me. I tell them, instead, the scariest thing I know: that
there is a purpose to life, and meaning, and that everything we do counts in
the end. This is the scariest thing I know-but also the most wonderful. 4
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